The best moment of Fatal Influence vs Las Tóxicas was not the moonsault, the Michinoku Driver, the Codebreaker or even the sight of Fallon Henley being forcibly introduced crotch-first to a ring post.
It was a referee refusing to count to three.
Flammer had just flattened Lainey Reid with a Codebreaker and dropkick, covered her and seemingly won the match for Las Tóxicas.
But Flammer was not legal.
La Hiedra was.
The ref refused to count.
Of course he did.
This was bureaucracy invading professional wrestling at precisely the funniest possible moment.
And it was brilliant.
Fatal Influence arrive in Chicago and upset the crowd
WWE x AAA Worlds Collide was recorded on September 26 at the Allstate Arena near Chicago before being released several days later, and this match landed third on the card.
Fatal Influence arrived as WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions, Fallon Henley and Lainey Reid accompanied by WWE Women’s United States Champion Jacy Jayne.
Las Tóxicas had Flammer and La Hiedra, with Lady Maravilla at ringside.
Las Tóxicas received a huge reception, while Fatal Influence were treated as though they had arrived to announce increased parking charges.
Jacy Jayne understood immediately.
She started goading people, gesturing towards them, shouting at them and generally behaving like someone who had spent the afternoon actively researching how to annoy Illinois.
Henley had her own little touches.
But then there was Lainey Reid.
Good grief.
There were a handful of Fatal Influence supporters near the front row, which Reid noticed immediately. Rather than breaking character and acknowledging them normally, she sarcastically applauded them with an expression that basically said:
Yes. Finally. Took you long enough. Clap harder.
That is excellent professional wrestling.
The supporting fan understands that Reid has noticed them. The wrestling nerd understands that she has managed to acknowledge them without becoming nice. Everyone else just sees an obnoxious heel sarcastically clapping at spectators.
Three audiences served simultaneously.
Lovely stuff.
Who is Lainey Reid?
Reid joined Fatal Influence after Jazmyn Nyx left WWE in autumn 2025, effectively filling the vacancy within Jacy Jayne’s group.
Originally from Gadsden, Alabama, Reid has an athletic background in track and field, which makes considerably more sense once you watch her move around a wrestling ring.
There is explosiveness there.
More importantly, there is personality.
She was wearing purple here. Proper purple.
A little Prince.
Lainey Reid, Lainey Reid…
To the tune of Purple Rain.
It sort of works if you are generous about rhythm, syllables and music generally.
The knee pads were purple. The laces were purple. There were highlights through her hair.
Presentation matters in wrestling because wrestling is fundamentally people wearing absurd clothing and pretending to hate one another until somebody gets hit with a chair.
Reid looked like a star.
Then she wrestled like one.
Las Tóxicas make an immediate impression
I will admit something unfashionable for people writing wrestling reviews.
I had not really watched Las Tóxicas before.
There is sometimes an expectation now that wrestling fans should possess encyclopaedic knowledge of every promotion operating across several continents, otherwise somebody with a Kenny Omega profile picture will appear and demand your resignation.
But discovering someone is part of the fun.
Flammer I recognised once she appeared.
Lady Flammer, generally known simply as Flammer, is one of AAA’s established women’s stars and had only recently ended a remarkable 1,128-day reign as Reina de Reinas Champion.
La Hiedra, meanwhile, immediately made herself difficult to forget.
She started against Fallon Henley, who is billed at 5 feet 7 inches, and got the better of the opening exchanges strongly enough that Henley decided another employee should deal with this.
Enter Reid.
La Hiedra tagged Flammer.
Reid grabbed a waistlock and threw Flammer down with a proper thud.
Then she danced.
Not subtle dancing either.
A deliberately exaggerated lucha-style taunt designed specifically to annoy the crowd.
Had Flammer done it, Chicago probably cheers.
Reid did it.
They booed furiously.
Reid wandered over and applauded Flammer in the corner afterwards because apparently merely wrestling her opponent was insufficient.
It was becoming difficult to decide whether she was having a wrestling match or conducting a ten-minute social experiment.
Then things got strange
Henley returned.
La Hiedra returned.
Las Tóxicas began working Henley over together and eventually found a move I was not expecting to encounter.
They each grabbed one of Henley’s legs from outside the ring and dragged her crotch-first into the ring post.
Wrestling is peculiar.
Twenty years watching this stuff and every so often someone still invents a new method of making you wince.
Then La Hiedra hit Lainey Reid with a Stunner.
Yes.
A Stunner.
Steve Austin’s finishing move appearing during a WWE x AAA women’s tag match on a Wednesday-night YouTube broadcast.
Stunners.
Booty bumps.
Michinoku Drivers.
Purple knee pads.
Corporate synergy.
All happening at once.
And somehow it works.
Fatal Influence understand the little things
Jacy Jayne had been relatively quiet for a few minutes.
Naturally that could not continue.
La Hiedra drifted towards the ropes and Jayne began shouting, distracting her before eventually landing the cheap shot.
Fatal Influence took control.
Reid and Henley started making quick tags, keeping La Hiedra isolated and repeatedly dragging her away from Flammer.
Then came perhaps my favourite wrestling sequence of the entire match.
Fatal Influence hit a lovely double-team attack, Henley providing the initial flapjack-style setup before Reid landed a forward-flipping cutter or e that looked suspiciously like Charlotte Flair’s Natural Selection after a particularly aggressive software update.
Two count.
Reid immediately transitioned into a headlock.
That sounds less interesting than the previous sentence.
It wasn’t.
La Hiedra started reaching for Flammer.
Reid physically dragged her away from the corner, secured the hold, then bridged backwards to increase the pressure while simultaneously selling the effort involved.
Tiny details.
That is wrestling.
Nobody seriously expects La Hiedra to submit to a headlock because wrestlers apparently evolved resistance to headlocks around 1987.
But Reid made it look plausible.
Then she screamed at the crowd to shut up in an impressively high register.
Perfect.
La Hiedra fought loose.
Reid kicked her in the stomach.
Then she spotted Flammer on the apron and threw a left hook that Mikaela Mayer or Chantelle Cameron would probably have appreciated.
Flammer disappeared.
Flammer finally gets loose
La Hiedra eventually created enough separation to crawl towards her corner.
Fatal Influence desperately tried to stop her.
The resulting sequence ended with three people simultaneously diving towards the canvas in different directions.
It looked ridiculous.
Excellent.
Flammer got the tag.
Everything accelerated.
Codebreaker to Henley.
More action outside.
A near fall.
Reid dragged La Hiedra from the apron.
Jayne became involved.
Lady Maravilla joined the increasingly administrative ringside disagreement.
Reid eventually superkicked Maravilla.
Problem solved.
For approximately eleven seconds.
Henley then positioned Flammer between the ropes, tagged Reid, sprinted across the ring and yanked Flammer backwards with a brutal rope-assisted suplex.
And here came Reid.
Second rope.
Moonsault.
Beautiful.
Two count.
Could have been three.
La Hiedra broke it up.
Now we were entering the section of wrestling matches in which legality quietly leaves the building.
Nobody is legal anymore
La Hiedra hit a Michinoku Driver.
Reid answered with a nasty diving knee.
Flammer rolled Reid up.
Two.
Codebreaker.
Then a vicious dropkick with Reid slumped against the bottom rope.
Flammer covered her.
Nothing.
The ref was just standing there.
For a fraction of a second it looked like he had forgotten his job.
Then the explanation arrived.
Flammer was not legal.
La Hiedra was.
It was a minor procedural detail.
Which is precisely why I loved it.
Professional wrestling constantly asks referees to become conveniently stupid.
Rules are rules.
Flammer looked understandably annoyed because she had done enough to pin one-half of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions.
La Hiedra entered and tried to finish the job.
But that tiny interruption had given Reid valuable seconds to recover.
La Hiedra attempted another driver.
Reid rolled through.
One.
Two.
Three.
Fatal Influence win.
Everybody somehow won
This finish could easily have felt cheap.
Instead it worked.
Flammer was protected because she effectively had Reid beaten.
La Hiedra took the fall but only after the legal-participant confusion created the opening.
AAA apparently have interest in developing tension between La Hiedra and Flammer, particularly around La Hiedra wanting to establish herself alongside, or possibly above, her partner.
Well, there you go.
Fatal Influence keep winning.
Las Tóxicas gain sympathy.
The referee gets to enforce something.
And Reid gets the actual pinfall.
There are worse evenings.
She joined Fatal Influence to replace Jazmyn Nyx, and performances like this make that feel less like somebody filling a vacant position and more like the stable finding another dimension.
Jayne remains the leader.
Henley remains essential too.
But Reid provides something slightly different.
Athleticism, yes.
Track and field background, yes.
But especially those reactions.
The clapping.
The dancing.
The screaming.
The loser gesture towards the crowd after the bell.
Anyone can execute moves.
Getting spectators to dislike you while simultaneously making people who enjoy wrestling appreciate exactly how well you are making them dislike you is much harder.
That is the job.
What does this say about WWE and AAA?
There is inevitably a corporate layer hanging over Worlds Collide because WWE now co-owns Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide alongside Fillip, with AAA’s operational future increasingly tied into WWE’s wider wrestling ecosystem.
Which means these interpromotional matches are not quite invasions in the old wrestling sense.
Nobody is storming enemy territory.
They are visiting another department.
But the wrestlers can still create the illusion.
Chicago treated Las Tóxicas as Mexico’s representatives.
Fatal Influence realised they were the invading Americans and behaved accordingly.
For 10 minutes and 12 seconds, corporate structure became irrelevant.
That is probably the best compliment you can give the match.
Lainey Reid went to AAA and got the win
There is also something cool about Reid having this result on her record.
Technically it was WWE x AAA.
Technically it was held in Chicago.
Technically WWE and AAA now exist beneath overlapping corporate umbrellas.
I do not care.
AAA ring.
AAA opposition.
Reid got the pin.
I am counting it.
Afterwards she gestured towards the people booing Fatal Influence and threw out the loser sign.
Go do one, Chicago.
Robert Lewandowski will be back playing soon for Chicago Fire in MLS, and I bet you lot will not boo him.
There is absolutely no logical connection between Robert Lewandowski and this match.
There isn’t.
Fatal Influence won because they were just organised enough when Las Tóxicas became slightly less organised. Reid got another meaningful moment, Flammer looked dangerous, La Hiedra has a grievance, Jacy Jayne annoyed several thousand people and Adrian Butler became perhaps the only wrestling referee this month to remember who was legally in the match.
Nobody really lost.
That tends to be the mark of good wrestling.
